Over 12 miles the road up Pikes Peak winds through 156 turns, climbing nearly 5,000 feet to terminate at an altitude of 14,110 -- 4,000 feet higher than the FAA requires to flip on your personal electronic devices in a commercial aircraft. On a normal day, people with RVs and SUVs lumber their struggling machines up to the top, engines gasping for air, and then gently thread their way back down to the bottom, brakes smoking and suffering. But, on one special day a year, a circus of hooligans with high-powered cars, motorcycles and various other motorized contraptions claim the mountain pass as their own.
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has run since 1916 in some form or another, but lately the tone of the competition has been changing. Quite literally. Electric-powered vehicles are now whizzing up the mountain in droves and, increasingly, they're challenging their gas-powered competitors. Indeed, the fastest motorcycle up the course this year was electric, and the cars are getting faster. How fast? How about more power than a Ferrari 458 and nearly three times the torque in a package that weighs 1,000 pounds less? That's what Toyota's TMG EV P002 puts down in Pikes Peak trim, 600 horsepower and 900 ft-lbs of torque. It's a ridiculously overpowered little machine, and Toyota was kind enough to let me drive it.
Filed under: Transportation